Chris Rock Roars into Town with Strict Cellphone Rules

The Weekend Guru Guide’s to Enjoying Living Legends

Chris Rock is also hitting Smart Financial Centre, making it the new center of comedy.

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B L A C K I E performs Saturday at Civic TV.

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Travis Scott will perform with Lil Wayne on Halloween at Warehouse Live. He's rooting for the Astros.

Houston’s weekends are packed full of events, but how many of them are truly worthy of your time? PaperCity’s Weekend Guru Matthew Ramirez cuts through the clutter to give you the best options in this weekly series.

That’s 3-on-3 in a HalfcourtChris Rock is a Top Five (pun intended) dead-or-alive comic. He should need no introduction. Rock is now in his fourth working decade, and has graced the screen in classics like CB4, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, and New Jack City. I’d argue his I Think I Love My Wife is a woefully underrated movie, an homage to Eric Rohmer with perfect circa-2006 aesthetics (like a dance scene set to “Laffy Taffy”). And of course there’s Bigger and Blacker, Everybody Hates Chris, and The Chris Rock Show.

He hasn’t toured in nearly a decade and in interviews frequently cites his concerns with smartphone usage at performances. Hence his two shows this weekend, as part of his Total Blackout tour at the Smart Financial Centre have a strict no-phones-allowed policy (phones will be placed in Yondr locks), worth it for this rare opportunity to see him live. Tickets start at $49; Saturday night at 8 pm.

God Only KnowsBrian Wilson is the mastermind behind The Beach Boys, the best band of the 20th century — I mean the real Beach Boys, not Mike Love on Full House Beach Boys. Age (among other things) slowed Wilson down at the end of the century, but since 2004’s release of Smile, the long-gestated “lost” Beach Boys album Wilson re-recorded at the age of 61, Wilson has fully returned as a solo artist, releasing good albums every few years to a hardened group of devotees.

Wilson hits the Revention Music Center Friday, March 12, in a “Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds” tour stop, where the living legend will perform the best recorded album of all time live, perhaps for the last time.

Beer Me
Few things go together like beer and tacos, and leave it to Houston’s proudest local brewery, Saint Arnold, and the snazzy new brick-and-mortar location of Fusion Taco in The Heights, to make the most delicious Mother’s Day weekend pair. Specialty cocktails combined with Saint Arnold brew will kick things off, before a five-course event gets underway with artisanal tacos paired with appropriate Saint Arnold beers, all coordinated by an array of chefs.

PC Picks

WarchildB L A C K I E is my favorite Houston musician. You know how every new rapper calls themselves a rockstar now? He was at Numbers blowing speakers out in leather jackets while calling himself a “grime artist” nine years ago and sharing stages with punk bands.

The earliest Travis Scott songs are blatant B L A C K I E ripoffs, all in-the-red mixing and abrasive wall-of-sound noise. There wouldn’t be Yeezus without B L A C K I E, a claim backed up by the man himself. He is quietly one of the most influential rappers of this young century, but you can still walk up to him any given Saturday night at Grand Prize.

His first full-length release since 2012’s acoustic GEN (an avant-garde masterwork), his new album, Remains, is celebrated with a record release show at the temporarily relocated Civic TV Saturday, May 13 at 9 pm. The show is free, with Babyhorse and Austin’s Illustrations opening.

Comic View
The first all-female comedy festival in Houston, the Yellow Rose Comedy Festival, kicked off Friday at Warehouse Live, a five-star event indicative of the city’s rising comedy scene. However the two-day affair culminates Saturday at Warehouse Live with headliner Sara Schaefer, veteran of late-night TV, two-time Emmy award winner for her work with Jimmy Fallon, and perhaps best known as half of MTV’s fondly remembered Nikki and Sara Live.

Fellow headliners include Maggie Maye (who was hilarious on Conan) and Olivia Arrington. Local faves like Dusti Rhodes (shouts to her, she bought me a shot last week), Liz Padjen, and Kathryn Way (who is a Twitter must-follow) round out the bill. Tickets start at just $20.